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Trusting a genealogist or family history research firm to find your ancestors is a big decision. Several factors are required to ensure success. This article briefly examines 7 essential considerations when choosing a researcher or firm. The firm or researcher(s): 1. Knows which sites to search. Not all the records that are needed are in…

With the redesign of the FamilySearch home page, it is now more difficult than ever to find the FamilySearch Research Wiki? Why FamilySearch would hide one of the most important sources on information on the web is beyond us. 1. To access the FS Wiki, go to the FamilySearch.org home page and click Get Help. 2.…

Note: “What We Learned Today” is a new column that Jan and Doris will be writing each day to capture learnings from the Rootsonomy Research Group in Skype. Today while I and a couple of the other researchers at Genealogists.com staff were looking for a death record of Josiah Oden, we re-realized how important it…

IF YOUR DOCUMENT IMAGE IS ONLINE Whenever you find a reference to an index entry for a document from FamilySearch.org, you really owe it to yourself to find and pull the original document. That is because an index page is NOT a SOURCE. Also, the source document may have much more information than the index…

Before beginning any research, especially paid projects, adequate time and energy should be directed toward the creation of clear and measurable research goals/objectives. “If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there.” Good objectives help ensure the accuracy of the research plan. Clearly stated objectives help the researcher understand what they…

Magritte’s “La Trahison des Images” (“The Treachery of Images”) (1928-9) or “Ceci n’est pas une pipe” (“This is not a pipe”). René Magritte’s message was that images do not convey the full sense of an object. Observers are often fooled into thinking that a simulacrum is the real thing. In the field of genealogy research,…

By knowing just the first three digits of someone’s SSN, you can correctly guess their birth state. The nine-digit SSN has been used since 1936 to track a person’s wages for the purpose of accruing benefits with the Social Security Administration. The SSN has 3 sections. Area Numbers The first three digits of the SSN…

Today’s blog provides some tips on how to search State records. For our examples, we will be using the Illinois State Marriage Index: One of the Genealogists.com researchers was searching for a marriage of Nicholas Bradbury and Ida Allen. Example 1: I entered bradbury, nicholas in the Groom’s Name field and no results. I then entered…

In the last 7 weeks since creating the Facebook page for my family history research firm Genealogists.com, I feel I have learned a few things about postings that I would like to share. Since many (perhaps even most) of you have your own Facebook pages, please correct any of these learnings that you feel are…

(Gleaning Vital Information from WWI Draft Registrations) In 1917 and 1918, approximately 24 million men living in the United States completed a World War I draft registration card. These registration cards represent approximately 98% of the men under the age of 46. The total U.S. population in 1917-1918 was about 100 million individuals. In…

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Trace.com is the world’s largest family history research firm with over 4,000 professional genealogists as well as hundreds of subject matter experts (scholars, private investigators, professors, clergy, and archivists). We are not limited to the small percentage of records that are online. We are not limited to just one or two genealogists. We are not limited to a few local repositories. Instead, we access the world’s records wherever they are located and in whatever form–whether online or offline, including the over 90% of records that FamilySearch estimates are not online.